


Blind

by All_time_low3st



Category: Bleach
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poor Self Care, canon sort of compliant, don't quote me, light TYBW spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29004000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/All_time_low3st/pseuds/All_time_low3st
Summary: (TYBW spoilers)In the precious few days between Ywach's first attack on the Sereitei and when the Sternritter return with the Bankai they stole, Toshiro falters and Ichigo helps him stand back up.
Relationships: Hitsugaya Toushirou/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	Blind

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Writing rare pair bleach fanfic in 2020?  
> More likely than you'd think.

"You look like shit." Toshiro looks up, rubbing at his eyes, trying to make the three Ichigo's standing in his doorway merge back into one. 

"Surely you have better things to do than insult me." He absolutely does not have the time nor patience for distractions or useless conversations, which seems to be most of what follows Kurosaki around. In about ten minutes he'll probably have a Kenpachi shaped hole in his wall if he doesn't get Kurosaki out of here before the directionally challenged Captain and Lieutenant manage to sniff Ichigo out. 

"See, it'd be fine if you only looked like shit. But you feel like shit too. Your spiritual pressure is in the toilet." Toshiro presses his palms into his eyes, letting his pen clatter on the desktop. His head is pounding, his brain doing somersaults against his skull, the pressure pulsing behind his eyes. 

"Astute observation. You can go now." He hears footsteps, the soft drag of socks against flooring, but they aren't heading out, they're heading in. Fabric rustles as Kurosaki presumably sits down in front of the desk. Toshiro drops his hands, blinking rapidly several times to get his eyes to clear and leveling a glare at the substitute soul reaper. "Did I imagine speaking or did you just choose not to hear it?"

"Chose not to hear it. I have selective hearing when it comes to friends digging early graves for themselves." Toshiro rests his chin on his hands, huffing to get his hair out of his eyes. He needs to trim it, he just hasn't had the time. Or the skill. 

"Say what you want so I can get back to work." Kurosaki leans back, putting his hands behind his head and tipping the chair back on its rear two legs. 

"So if I stall you'll be forced to take a break?" Toshiro is fairly certain the vein in his head is about to pop and spray blood everywhere. 

"If you stall I'll stick you in an ice cube and do my work anyway." The lax look on Kurosaki's face wipes away, his eyebrows lowering and his jaw setting at a sharp angle. He looks older than the last time Toshiro remembers seeing him. 

"You look about five minutes from passing out against the desk. Your spiritual pressure is about this much," the substitute pinches his fingers in front of his eye, squinting at the minuscule space between them. "more than mine when I lost my powers. What the hell have you been doing?" 

"Training." He spits, leaning over the desk and into Kurosaki's face. "We're at war. There's no time to be laying around growing moss on our sandals." 

"Training. Yeah. Cause that often tanks you. When was the last time you ate? Or slept? Or did anything but sit in this office or hide in that cave?" Toshiro narrows his eyes, his teeth snapping together. Kurosaki has no way he would know where Toshiro trains on his own, so that means someone is meddling. Someone that is probably his suspiciously absent lieutenant. She acts like she doesn't have a care in the world, that she doesn't notice anything, but he's seen it. The keenness in her blue eyes when she picks up on something, even if she doesn't say anything. It's why he can get so damn frustrated with her when she acts stupid and lazy. Because he knows she's not. He knows what she's capable of when she doesn't goof off. When she isn't exceedingly intoxicated, though he is beginning to see the allure of drinking. After everything they've seen recently, everything they've been through.

He wonders if it would help him sleep through the hollowness he feels right now. 

He's not sure there's any amount of alcohol anywhere that could fill that hole. 

"I'm preparing. In case you've forgotten, I don't have my bankai anymore. Half of my abilities I cannot do like this, I have to fill in that gap somehow. And paperwork doesn't wait for wars to end." Toshiro picks back up his pen, only to have Kurosaki smack it out of his loose grasp, the metal clamoring on the wood once more. "If you don't want frostbite, get out." 

"I don't even think you could hold me right now Toshiro." Ichigo actually isn't one hundred percent confident in that assumption, but he's confident enough. Confident enough to risk it versus risking what might happen if he walks away now. He doesn't know why Toshiro would listen to him when he's apparently not listening to anyone else, but he's not above trying. He does care about Toshiro. That's why he's here. 

"I get that your bankai being gone sucks, but realistically, what the hell are you gonna do if they attack right now? You'll be killed before you have half a chance to use whatever skills you've been working on. You've got to take a damn break." 

"And if all I have is a shikai and half assed Kido I'm also dead. Thank you for the revelations." 

"Do you have to be an ass when someone is trying to help you?" Kurosaki snaps back, leaning until his elbows rest on the edge of the mahogany desk, brown eyes staring into Toshiro's green ones. 

"You're not helping, you're distracting." Brown eyes narrow and the taller man stands, making the captain almost breath a sigh of relief, until he doesn't leave, invading further into Toshiro's space when he slips behind the desk and wraps his long fingers around Toshiro's thin bicep and pulling him up, practically yanking him against the wall of his chest. 

"You're even lighter than I guessed," Kurosaki murmurs as he drags Toshiro out from behind the desk, either not noticing or not commenting when the captain pinches his eyes shut and his feet catch on each other for a moment as dizziness overtakes his head, stars exploding behind his eyelids like fireworks, the world shifting on his axis. "And clumsier." 

"Because a big oaf is dragging me out of my chair." Toshiro doesn't bat him away though, his balance slightly too precarious and his energy too low to get into an actual fistfight with the substitute. "Where are we even going?" 

"Somewhere with a damn bed."

"At least take me to dinner first." Toshiro quips, bobbing along as he's dragged down the hallway, head lulling slightly as he jostles and turns. He probably looks about like Matsumoto does on her second bottle of sake. Except he's entirely sober. Of alcohol anyway. what he is, is very, very tired. But he's loathe to admit that.

"Oh I plan to. When was the last time you ate?" 

"An hour ago." 

"Tea isn't food." Toshiro mumbles something even he isn't sure what he actually says, perhaps just a series of defiant nonsensical syllables, but he retorts nonetheless, claiming the last word for himself. "Tea isn't even a good drink. Especially not since you drink it black." 

"Drinking it with as much sugar as you do makes it a desert not anything else. Certainly not worth having." Toshiro stumbles when his sock catches on a splinter in the flooring, his whole head spinning with the jarring motion. At least it's the end of his workweek. Matsumoto is on for the next two days, bar emergencies, he should be able to sleep. 

He just needs to finish those papers...

"Come on Kurosaki, just let me finish my work." 

"Sorry short stack. No dice. I was supposed to drag you out of their hours ago." Supposed to. He doesn't know why that makes his heart ache, but it does. To know he's really just here for some obligation, not any individual concern. He shouldn't care. He doesn't care. 

The words are as empty as his damn stomach. 

"Who's your boss then." 

Who made you waste your time to come drag me out of the office. 

They finally reach Toshiro's quarters, his home for all intents and purposes and Kurosaki shoulders open the door and drags Toshiro inside. "Put on pajamas. I'm going to make something with calories and fat. You're too skinny." Toshiro nods, though half of the words were just static. Just mumbling. Noise in his ears. He huffs, pushing his hair out of his eye, though it falls right back into place, tickling his eyelashes and threatening to scratch his cornea. 

He shuffles into the bathroom, bracing himself subtly on the door when he walks through. He just needs to sleep. Then he'll be fine. Kurosaki and everyone who is involved in this stupid intervention are just paranoid. 

He hangs his haori on the hook in the closet and starts shucking his robes, dropping them in piles on the ground and reaching for a simple yukata to wrap loosely around his frame. It hangs slightly short on his arms, a marker of the little bit he has managed to grow, but it also hangs loose on his shoulders, the sash looping more than he remembered it doing last time he wore it. 

He's fine. 

He has to be fine. 

"You have almost no food in here man. What the hell do you eat?" Kurosaki's voice rings out from the kitchen and Toshiro's eyes fly open, not even having realized when he closed them. 

He tugs the ends of his hair into a short tie at the base of his neck, the strands puffing out but not stuck to his skin anymore. "I don't eat here much." Mostly, he goes into the office early. Half the days Matsumoto drags him out to breakfast, the other half he does morning brief over his squad members while they're munching on bagels. 

Toshiro flops onto the couch in the living area, pressing his fingertips into his temples and leaning forward on his knees. He hears Kurosaki approach, but he doesn't look up. HIs arms feel like they weigh a thousand pounds, his head ten times that. 

"Look, I'm sorry I'm being a pain, but Tosh, we're all worried about you. Rangiku has been by the house ten times in the last month, talking about you, even Momo made her way down. I thought maybe they were exaggerating, but now you're scaring the shit out of me too."

The couch dips beside him. 

"I don't really know why they thought I was the best one to send in, we don't even know each other that well," Kurosaki shifts and chuckles dryly, his nervousness showing through even though Toshiro doesn't actually look at him. 

"I'm fine. I was going to sleep soon anyway." Probably at his desk, on top of his work, but that's neither here nor there. 

"You aren't. You look like I could snap your forearm like a toothpick and a breeze could knock you over. I don't know what kind of training you've been doing, but you're spiritual pressure is barely hanging on." 

"If you're going to talk my ear off, at least wait until morning." It's not like he hasn't heard all this before. 

The one thing he hasn't heard... 

A warm hand wraps around his wrist and tugs it away from his face, touches under his chin and tilts his head up. 

"Eat. Then we'll talk about how for a genius you're acting like an idiot." Toshiro rolls his eyes, eyes fluttering when it causes some more dizziness. He's handed a small plate of something and he doesn't even look at it before he starts munching on it, his stomach coming alive when the first bite hits it. 

Shit. 

"Fine. You had one point," Toshiro mumbles as he very gracelessly shovels the food in his mouth. It is a mixture of nauseating and relieving, finally eating, and he's not sure which sensation is winning, but he can't stop tossing it all back. 

He still doesn't taste it, it barely chewing really, the shadow of dread for tomorrow hanging over them like a noose. 

"They've been worried about you much longer than just since Ywach showed up," Ichigo says softly and Toshiro can feel eyes on him even if he doesn't turn to meet them. He can feel the scrutiny, the judgement. He bets Kurosaki is thinking he isn't a good captain either. That he's not suited for it. Making his own men worry about him... just validates everything he knows people have thought of him since the beginning. They've all made their opinions of him painfully clear, even if they haven't meant to do it cruelly. Jushiro treats him like a child, Kyoraku acts like he can't defend himself and it always sticking up for him, Mayuri doesn't miss a chance to dog Toshiro's performance or idea, Soi fon, well she doesn't even pretend she likes him and Kenpachi scoffs every time they cross paths. Byakuya hasn't really done much this way or that, but Toshiro is sure he wasn't in support of Toshiro's promotion back in the day. It's not like he's done anything since to prove he has a right to wear his haori.

The only one who seemed to legitimately support him was Aizen... and they all know how that turned out. He was mocking all of them the entire time.

"What happened anyway? When-when I got there, things were already bad.." Ichigo laughs, but it's in a way that's dark and haunted, lacking any actual amusement. "I thought half you guys were dead before I got there... I thought I was too late. You and Byakuya, you scared the shit out me man."

Toshiro sets the half eaten food down, grateful that at least some of the dizziness has subsided, though an oppressive weight has settled in where it was, making it exceedingly hard each time he blinks to make his eyes open again. It makes it hard to think too, his brain firing slowly, fighting each half conclusion he tries to jump to.

"Whatever you're trying to do, you're a team. All of you. That's what the 13 court guard squads is right? You have a whole squad of people to help you if you'd let them." Ichigo's hand falls heavy on his shoulder for a moment, squeezing him tightly, a shuddered exhale blowing the loose strands that have fallen out of Toshiro's ponytail. "I'd help. If you'd let me."

"Why do you care?" It's meant to be rude, as near all things Toshiro says are, but it doesn't come out with the bite he meant. Instead it comes out strangely vulnerable sounding, lacking the authority of his captaincy, his hard shell cracked open and betraying his youth and his insecurity.

Ichigo laughs again, but it's nervous this time. He wonders if laughing is something he does when he's uncomfortable. So far Toshiro is pretty sure he hasn't heard the substitute genuinely laugh. He bets it sounds nice.

The laugh that follows is genuine, bright and clear and perhaps a little excessive, but Toshiro finds he doesn't actually mind that the volume is a little too loud for so close to his ear.

"You know I'm almost tempted to keep you awake and see what else you say," Ichigo nudges Toshiro, preparing to force the younger (older?) boy into bed, standing with his hand outstretched, Toshiro's poor balance something Ichigo didn't miss. "Come on. Get some rest and I'll help you tomorrow. Okay Toshiro?"

Toshiro sighs, rolling his eyes and regretting it immediately as it makes his entire head feel like it's spinning.

"It's Captain Hitsugaya, Ichigo." He chastises, but it, like his other comments tonight, lack their usual heat.

"You're about to be Captain princess if you don't come on," Ichigo threatens and Toshiro stands, slightly steadier, though he doesn't protest taking Ichigo's hand, warm in his own, rough like his.

"Pick me up and I'll kill you." He grumbles, letting himself be dragged to bed. The fact that he makes it with only a stubbed toe and a bumped shoulder is probably a miracle, but right now he's just pissed off by it. When the hell did the hallway get so narrow anyway?

"Did dad ever tuck you in?" Ichigo asks and Toshiro just manages to send a withering glare his way.

"I'm not a child." He hisses, slinking down into his futon and stretching out, the blankets stuck around his feet until Ichigo unfurls them and drapes them over his shoulders. "How'd you find out about that anyway." He mumbles, eyes cracking open when he feels Ichigo's weight settle at the foot of the bed, annoyance making his brow twitch. "I don't need a damn sitter."

"Just gonna make sure you stay in the bed." Ichigo holds up his hands as if in surrender, but he doesn't move.

"At least sit up here instead of down there like a voyeur."

"Who taught the baby grown up words!" Ichigo snarks back, mock offense coloring his tone. Toshiro doesn't even register he'd closed his eyes again until he hears the shuffling instead of seeing Ichigo moving around. "After Aizen, when he told me he was a soul reaper, and I saw his haori, I asked. It was a long shot, but I knew his division was yours. Renji said people switch squads a lot, but he told me about you and Rangiku. That he missed you both."

If Ichigo ever were to bring up this moment in the future, Toshiro would deny it wholeheartedly. He'd deny that he'd rolled over, curled into himself and felt his chest devolve into shudders, hushed tears slipping down his cheeks, his hands clasped together over his chest.

He protests his age being a problem anytime it's brought up, but in truth, he was young. He still is. He was a child when he was under Isshin and though he'd never ever say it out loud, the man was like a father. He made Toshiro feel like he belonged somewhere. He made him feel less like an abandoned and unwanted boy and- and he just left. He left Toshiro and Rangiku without a word. Toshiro knew he was alive, only because it came up in the meeting to discuss returning Ichigo's powers. Because he felt him that night, even if they didn't speak.

Isshin made Toshiro feel like he mattered. Until he didn't. Until he was just another person that left him.

It's an agonizing relief to hear he wasn't forgotten.

He'll protest that being held by Ichigo ever happened. More than that, he'll deny until he's blue in the face how nice it felt, even to himself.


End file.
